Acknowledgements
This book is based on my doctoral thesis, and I am much indebted to Professors Owen McIntyre and Sigrid Schütz, who skilfully and enthusiastically guided me through the doctoral project on the community of interest approach. I also owe great thanks to the members of my evaluation committee, Professors Patricia Wouters, Alistair Rieu-Clarke and Ernst Nordtveit, for their comments and questions to the doctoral thesis, which helped me develop and strengthen the manuscript.
I further owe thanks to the Faculty of Law at the University of Bergen for giving me the opportunity to realise a research project in international water law. Many colleagues have attended various research presentations over those years and contributed with valuable comments and critical questions that have been greatly appreciated. The Norwegian Centre for the Law of the Sea (previously the K. G. Jebsen Centre) at UiT Arctic University accommodated me during my time in Tromsø, and I am enormously grateful for their exceptional hospitality – Tore Henriksen and Christin Skjervold deserve a special thanks! During my Tromsø stay, I was surrounded by a number of excellent Ph.D candidates and scholars that provided input and inspiration to this study, as well as a great amount of fun and friendship. Thanks also to the Stockholm Resilience Centre and Claudia Ituarte-Lima, for accommodating me for a research stay – a time of significant inspiration and discoveries.
Gratitude is also owed to Professor Stephen McCaffrey, Marie Sheldon and Kelley Baylis for giving me the opportunity to publish this study in Brill’s International Water Law Series, and for competent and helpful guidance in this process.
Finally, I thank my family and friends for their curiosity, support and encouragement. They have contributed to developing this study through numerous interesting, and challenging, discussions and opportunities for distractions. My deepest love and gratitude to Henrik, Alfrida and Elvira who fill my life with humour, creativity and endless inspiration, and whose relatively meagre interest in legal research has helped me keep a healthy distance to the fascinating universe of international water law.